Ryan Sidebottom has been presented as one of the last representatives of a dying breed: the England swing bowler, a breed that went out of fashion with the steel toe-cap and the trouser hitch. England's surprise packet of the summer sees it differently. According to Sidebottom, while Duncan Fletcher was preaching that sheer pace was the imperative for a Test fast bowler, a quiet rebellion was going on in the shires.

Fletcher has departed as England coach and the new regime is less prescriptive about the need for outright pace. The supplanting of Sajid Mahmood for Sidebottom's more considered talents illustrates that only too well. But rather than being a temporary reversion to abandoned verities, until the new bowling coach, Allan Donald, sorts out the quicks, Sidebottom sees himself as the representative of a style that could soon be back in vogue.

"There are more and more coaches now talking about going back to basics and bowlers are being coached to try to get the ball to swing," he said yesterday, as he experienced the extra-curricular demands of being an England cricketer - an appearance at an Npower roadshow in Manchester before Thursday's third Test at Old Trafford.

"There are not a lot of swing bowlers around at the moment but there will be a few more coming through in the next few years. As a youngster I could swing the ball but I didn't know how to do it regularly. Some days I could swing the ball, on others I didn't. It would leave me thinking 'How did I do that?' That is when you need guidance. It is about getting to know your own game."

Sidebottom drew some inspiration from Phil DeFreitas, a locum bowling coach at Trent Bridge, but the most beneficial help came from two of his Nottinghamshire team-mates: Greg Smith, a South African left-armer who retired last season, and the former England all-rounder Mark Ealham, who at 37 might soon reluctantly follow him.

County salts who finally break into an England side always talk of never giving up hope of a Test cap and of how the ambition drove them on through the drearier days of the county season. Ealham is different. Ealham loves county cricket and during his career with Kent and Nottinghamshire felt so comfortable in it that many feel that it softened his ambition.

"Ealhy has been great for me," said Sidebottom. "He rings me up if I have got any problems. We just talk over things: about how not to get frustrated if things don't go right. Greg Smith was also fantastic with me. He talked about what to do when pitches were flat, not to be scared of using the bouncer, stuff like that. You have still to get the ball in the right area on a regular basis even if it's not doing much, but you can't become predictable."

Sidebottom is unlikely to find Old Trafford as seductive as Headingley, where eight West Indies wickets ensured a perfect return to Test cricket after a solitary, unrewarding appearance against Pakistan six years ago.

If he does survive until the winter tour of Sri Lanka, a strength-sapping experience for any fast bowler, he would take heart from his greatest role model. Chaminda Vaas, the most resilient swing bowler in world cricket, has taken 157 of his 313 Test wickets in Sri Lanka at an impressive 25 runs apiece. On benign surfaces, but in conditions that are often humid and overcast, swing bowlers can often outdo the out-and-out speed merchants.

"Vaas is the bowler I really look up to," he said. "He's a left-armer who these days bowls around the mid-70s, who swings the ball around and does different things. He's proved that there are other bowlers in Test cricket, not just ones with express pace. It is about working out how batsmen play and bowling at their weaknesses."

"But I'm not looking too far ahead. This is only my third Test and I want to be a regular. But there are other guys ahead of me in the pecking order. I've just got to keep taking wickets. It's only one game and the ball swung. I'm not going to get carried away."